Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman has written what I suspect most American Jews feel—that football success for Tim Tebow would be bad for the Jews. Tebow is the very Christian quarterback of the NFL’s Denver Broncos who leads high-profile prayer meetings after football games. Here’s what Hammerman wrote:

People are always looking for signs of God’s beneficence, and a victory by the Orange Crush over the blue-clad Patriots, from the bluest of blue states, will give fodder to a Christian revivalism that has already turned the Republican presidential race into a pander-thon to social conservatives, rekindling memories of those cultural icons of the ‘80s, the Moral Majority and “Hee Haw.” The culture wars are alive and well, and, if the current climate in Washington is any indicator, the motors are being revved up for what will undoubtedly be the most cantankerous Presidential campaign ever. When supposedly well-educated candidates publicly question overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change and evolution and then gain electoral traction by fabricating conspiracies about a war on Christmas, these are not rational times….

If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.

I admire much of what Tebow stands for. His mom’s decision to risk her own life rather than abort her fetus flies against my own – and Judaism’s – values, but neither am I pro-choice in all cases. His story is so improbable that if he were to win it all, a part of me would be wondering whether there is a Purpose behind it, just as I saw a divine hand in the equally unbelievable Red Sox victory of 2004. And it makes me wonder whether other Jews, the ones who don’t happen to have advanced degrees in religion and a few decades of rabbinic experience, might be even more seduced by this unfolding drama. Will legions of Southern Baptist missionaries hit the college campuses the very next day, spreading this new gospel of Tim? Already there is a “Jews for Tebow” Facebook page.

The above quote was taken from Hot Air(bold-face in Hot Air’s version). The original source has been pulled by Jewish Week, suggesting that they are now aware that this is a very regrettable faux pas indeed.
Hammerman has apologized, but he said what he said, and, as discussed below, his views are hardly out of the Jewish mainstream. In Hammerman’s world, a Tebow victory would inflame his followers with Christian religious zeal and they would immediately rise up against the Jews and all things multicultural: “the emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.” Of course, it’s really a fear of Whites rising up and rebelling against their erstwhile masters.

In Hammerman’s view, the domination of American culture by people like himself is completely appropriate. He is utterly contemptuous of the traditional people and culture of America. Here’s my rendition of Hammerman’s train of thought:

These nuts are anti-science; they don’t believe in climate change and evolution; they’re basically a bunch of illiterate hicks. I, on the other hand, have enlightened views—entirely supported by science—that there are no racial differences in anything important like IQ and that social science is unanimous that multicultural societies work marvelously. Even the U. S. can be a successful multi-cultural society if we can squelch all public manifestations of Christianity. [Admittedly, this is a contradiction, but he has no conscious awareness that it's a contradiction. In the same way, his horror that the U.S. still has some trappings of Christianity doesn't interfere with his belief that Israel should remain a Jewish state. And his attitude that American Christians should be "inclusive" certainly doesn't extend to Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.] My views mark me as an educated person—the New York Timesis my bible. Meanwhile, the yahoos that relate to Tebow remain unwashed even if they managed to get through college. For an entire century, these hicks have been standing in the way of our utopian multicultural fantasy world created by the Jewish intellectual left. We won the battle for the brains of the smart people a long time ago, but boobs like Tebow and his fans are still dangerous. We don’t yet have the entire power of the federal government available to put these people in a gulag, but we enlightened and superior folk have to do everything we can to stop them.

The deep fear of Christianity—especially when it’s emotionally compelling—is mother’s milk to American Jews. For example, Israeli patriot Elliott Abrams acknowledges that the mainstream Jewish community in America “clings to what is at bottom a dark vision of America, as a land permeated with anti-Semitism and always on the verge of anti-Semitic outbursts.”

According to Abrams, because of this vision, Jews have taken the lead in secularizing America. In fact, the key role of Jewish organizations in shaping the Constitutional law on Church/State relations is well known. And it’s not much of a mystery who’s behind the war on Christmas; Hollywood certainly hates it, as Edmund Connelly reminds us (see here and here).

Or Joel Kotkin: “For generations, [American] Jews have viewed religious conservatives with a combination of fear and disdain.”
Or Norman Podhoretz:

[The Jews] emerged from the Middle Ages knowing for a certainty that — individual exceptions duly noted — the worst enemy they had in the world was Christianity: the churches in which it was embodied — whether Roman Catholic or Russian Orthodox or Protestant — and the people who prayed in and were shaped by them. It was a knowledge that Jewish experience in the ages to come would do very little, if indeed anything at all, to help future generations to forget. (See here.)

deep-rooted aversion to engaging intellectually with the effects of Christianity. His distaste for the culture of Christendom before the Enlightenment is palpable. For instance, he responds to historian Barbara Tuchman’s summary of medieval economic theory with, “As my grandfather would have put it, ‘Goyische kopp!’—gentile head.” This old family attitude seems to make this otherwise very bright scholar’s interpretations of the last 2,000 years rather obtuse.

This fear and loathing of Christianity is mainstream among the numerically dominant liberal Jews like Hammerman—the 80+% of American Jews who voted for Obama. Liberalism as Jewish religious identity (in the Diaspora but certainly not in Israel where the masquerade of Reform Judaism is non-existent). Trudie Pert’s series on Rebbe Schneerson shows that Schneerson thought that religious hatred of Jews was not important in America. That’s quite right. Indeed large swaths of American Protestantism are philo-Semitic, including many millions who are rabidly pro-Israel. But the feeling is definitely not reciprocated by any segment of the American Jewish community. While liberal Jews like Hammerman live in deathly fear of a Christian uprising, Schneerson and his cult have well-advertised views on the inferiority of all non-Jews, and the Orthodox show their true stripes in Israel where Christmas is under attack by the Heredim and where spitting on Christian clerics has been going on for years to the point that even the ADL is complaining. Just today there’s this news item from Israel on settler-types occupying a sacred Christian site on the West Bank—and fulfilling the biblical mandate for a greater Israel:

The Israeli Police apprehended 17 extremist settlers who barricaded themselves … at the site of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. The settlers hung banners with photos of the right-wing Jewish leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who called for the “Jewish state to expand beyond the Jordan river into the state of Jordan and all the way to Iraq.” … The settlers entered a closed military zone behind the border fence with Jordan, and barracked themselves in the site, very close to where Jordanian soldiers are stationed. The site, 10 kilometers away from the West Bank city of Jericho, is one the most sacred sites for Christians after the Nativity Church in Bethlehem and the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Don’t look for religious tolerance when Jews have power.

The reality is that if Tim Tebow did indeed spark a religious revival among Christians, it’s unlikely they would want to start a pogrom against the Jews given the philo-Semitism that is so typical of the vast majority of American Protestants. Nor is it likely that they would rise up against all things multi-cultural. After all, not a few of the players involved in Tebow’s post-game prayer meetings are Black.

Hammerman should be happy. The anti-White, anti-Christian revolution is moving on schedule, and people like Tebow are quite unlikely to do anything to change things. Indeed, the good rabbi is getting a bit ahead of himself. It’s still a nominally Christian country. He should wait a couple decades when it will be safe for Jews in the Diaspora West to really take off the gloves when it comes to Jewish fear and loathing of Christianity and the Europeans who made Christianity their religion.

But Rabbi Hammerman has doubtless learned that it’s bad form for Jews in America to go public with their fear and loathing of Christianity at this time. He should learn to be patient. Everything’s moving in his direction.

The obvious but important corollary to this is that the Jewish support for all things multicultural has nothing to do with love of humanity and other such uplifting emotions. The primary emotions are quite clearly fear and hatred, and that does not bode well for the future.

The Republican presidential primary has become a bit feisty, but it will get downright ugly if Ron Paul wins the Iowa caucuses.

The principled, antiwar, Constitution-obeying, Fed-hating, libertarian Republican congressman from Texas stands firmly outside the bounds of permissible dissent as drawn by either the Republican establishment or the mainstream media.

But in a crowded GOP field currently led by a collapsing Newt Gingrich and an uninspiring Mitt Romney, Paul could carry the Iowa caucuses, where supporter enthusiasm has so much value.

If Paul wins, how will the media and the GOP react? Much of the media will ignore him (expect headlines like “Romney Beats out Gingrich for Second Place in Iowa”). Some in the Republican establishment and the conservative media will panic. Others will calmly move to crush him, with the full cooperation of the liberal mainstream media.

For a historical analogy, study the aftermath of Pat Buchanan’s 1996 victory in the New Hampshire primary. “It was awful,” Buchanan told me this week when I asked him about his few days as the nominal GOP front-runner. “They come down on you with both feet.”

The GOP establishment that week rallied to squash Buchanan. Just after New Hampshire, Gingrich’s hand-picked group of GOP leaders, known as the Speaker’s Advisory Group, met with one thing on their minds, according to a contemporaneous Newsweek report: “How to deal with Buchanan.”

While many Republicans dismissed Buchanan’s New Hampshire win as irrelevant, arguing his support was too narrow to ever win the nomination, the neoconservative wing of the GOP darkly warned of a Buchanan menace. “People are panicked,” Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard told Newsweek. “If they’re not, it’s only because they don’t know what’s going on.”

The liberal mainstream media dutifully filled out Kristol’s picture of “what’s going on.” Newsweek put an ominously lit picture of Buchanan on the cover under the words “Preaching Fear.” The article stretched itself into contortions to paint Buchanan as a white racist. (Buchanan was campaigning in South Carolina, which still flew the Confederate flag over its capitol.)

Ted Koppel, on “Nightline” in the days after New Hampshire, relied on unsubstantiated tales (for which he later apologized) about Buchanan’s father as a way of tying the son to “bigoted and isolationist radio orator Father Coughlin.” He also cited a Jewish neighbor of the Buchanans who was beaten up and called “Christ-killer” — without mentioning that Pat was off at college at the time.

Insinuations of racism and anti-Semitism were the weapons of the mainstream media, but Buchanan’s sins in the eyes of the GOP establishment were different. They feared Pat because he rejected a rare inviolable article of faith among the party elites: free trade. Also, in the post-Cold War era, Buchanan’s foreign policy had become far less interventionist than that of the establishment.

It’s similar with Paul. There are many reasons he is unacceptable to the Republican elite. Some of these transgressions reflect badly on Paul. Others reflect badly on the party.

In Paul’s favor, he holds to the professed principles of his party. He makes Republicans look bad by firmly opposing overspending and the unconstitutional expansion of federal power. He correctly predicted the troubles that would be caused by housing subsidies and the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Paul is also disliked for his foreign policy. His non-interventionism has provoked clashes with the party elites, but it resonates with a growing number of Republicans who have grown tired of endless war and nation building that doesn’t seem to serve American interests. But Paul regularly goes too far for even these voters, criticizing the killing of al Qaeda leaders and at times sounding like he agrees with Iran’s grievances against the United States.

But neither his establishment-irritating adherence to principle, nor his hawk-angering foreign policy, will be the focus of the anti-Paul attacks should he carry Iowa. His conservative critics and the mainstream media will imply that he is a racist, a kook, and a conspiracy theorist.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

The Perennial
Struggle

Every year around this time there is
the same list of questions circulating among Christian Identists, and
many of us have the same inward struggle. What should we do about
Christmas? For many of us it is not a struggle at all.
Rather,
we simply alienate our families and friends by shunning their pagan
holiday. However while it is good never to compromise the truths of
our faith, we are also told to love our brethren above all but God
Himself. There certainly are places where we should never cross the
line, and we should not violate the commandments of God even in spite
of our brethren. But it may be advantageous to see Christmas as an
occasion to witness to the truth, rather than as an opportunity to
somehow prove that we ourselves are more holy than our kith and kin.

Of course many of the people who
adhere to the true Christian faith as it is found in Scripture, as
those who associate ourselves with one form or another of Christian
Identity see it, have come to understand the errors of our ancestors.
Therefore it is natural for Christian Identists to despise Christmas
as a pagan holiday. They have good reason to do so, because Christmas
and many of the things associated with it clearly have pagan origins.
But the winter festival has been a de facto part of our culture for
thousands of years now - in spite of its complete absence from
Scripture. And because of this, it is traditionally a principal
gathering time for most White families. In fact, often it is the only
time of the year in which many White families take an opportunity to
gather at all! And if you are in the position that many in Christian
Identity find themselves, the rest of your family celebrates
Christmas with all of the usual holiday fervor.

It is fully evident from Scripture
that Christ was born not in December, but sometime during the end of
what is to us September – that time of the year at which the Old
Testament Feast of Trumpets occurred, and a couple of years before
the year in which our popular chronology places His birth. A few
hundred years after Christ, the Roman church adopted the ancient
pagan winter solstice festival for its own purposes. There is no
doubt that the winter festival is a pagan holiday, celebrated among
the Greeks as Bacchanalia, and in Rome as Saturnalia. It was a time
of drunken revelry and sexual promiscuity.

Examining the pagan origins of what
we now call Christmas, we find, for
instance, the so-called
Christmas tree described in Jeremiah chapter 10, written
nearly 600 years before the birth of Christ, from verse 3: “ For
the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the
forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck
it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with
hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but
speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not
afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them
to do good.” This is but one of the pagan customs which our
Scythian-Israelite ancestors took out of Mesopotamia when they
departed.

And in spite of all this, I find
myself at times wanting to defend Christmas, but only because the
jews and all the other enemies of Yahshua Christ are continually
attacking it. And they do this even in spite of the fact that jewish
merchants and bankers profit so handsomely from it! So this is the
perennial struggle which I referred to at the opening of this
discussion. Yet it need not be a struggle at all, once we attain the
proper perspective.

1 John 4:21: “And this commandment
have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.”

We in Christian Identity should be
well aware of the prophecies which Yahweh uttered of our people, that
there are those who would slumber, and there are those whom He has
called into awakening in His marvelous light: the truth of the Gospel
and the Covenant. We who are called to understand His Word need not
vaunt ourselves over our brethren who have not yet been blessed in
that same manner. For God – and no man – decides which of us
awaken, and which continue in that prophesied blindness.

Yet if one can use even a pagan
holiday to do good, how can that ever be evil? Was that not the
example of our Redeemer in the first place? While most Christian
Identists certainly would not eat the ham, and most of them may also
- as they should - shun the silly tree and the made-in-China
decorations, we certainly should not shun our kin. We should reject
the commercialism which the jews profit from so handsomely - but we
should also reject that commercialism all the rest of the year! We
should celebrate and cherish the little time that we get with our
families all year long, but for many of us this is the only time we
may actually get to spend with them. Therefore we should not despise
them, even if they know nothing about those things which we esteem to
be true. Rather, this is also an excellent time to testify to that
truth.

At John 8:22-23 we find this: “Then
there was the feast of dedication in Jerusalem – it was winter –
and Yahshua walked about in the temple on the porch of
Solomon.”

The feast of dedication was
instituted by the Maccabees after the restoration of the temple about
150 before the birth of Christ, after the temple had been spoiled by
the Greeks of Syria. Like Christmas, it is a holiday instituted by
man, and not by God. Christ was found in the temple during the feast
of dedication, not necessarily because He was celebrating the feast,
but because that is where His people were gathered! Yahshua was
teaching in the temple at the feast of dedication, and although the
religious authorities were opposed to Him, John tells us at 8:30
that: “Upon His saying these things many believed in
Him.”

We can indeed go to our family
gatherings on Christmas, and every other chance that we get. And
while we certainly should not go into debt for those unnecessary
things which the jews try to sell us, we can, and we should, use
those times to testify to the truth of the gospel.

As Paul said speaking of his trial
in Rome, albeit in a somewhat different context, at Philippians
1:15-18: “Some indeed even because of envy and strife, but some
also by approval are proclaiming the Christ. Surely these out of
love, knowing that I am set for a defense of the good message, but
those out of contention are declaring the Christ not purely,
supposing to stir up tribulation in my bonds. What then? That in
every way, whether in pretext or in truth, Christ is declared, and in
this I rejoice. And surely I will rejoice.”

Whether in pretext or in truth, if
Christ our Redeemer is declared, we too should rejoice. Therefore we
should not let the jews take the Christ out of Christmas. Rather, we
should celebrate our Redeemer on that day and on every other day.
However if the Christmas holiday is the day upon which we can be with
our kin, and attest our love for them and for Christ too, then we
must certainly take advantage of it as best we can.

So to hell with the antichrists!
Transform the pagan winter holiday into a true celebration of Christ.
And in the meantime pray for His return, that He may make all new
things, and make gone His enemies.

Friday, December 23, 2011

December 22, 2011 "Think Progress" -- The funding
behind Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future, an
independent political committee, offers an intriguing clue into the
financial deep pockets backing Gingrich’s candidacy. This week, McClatchy revealed that American Solutions footed the $8 million bill for private jet charters while Gingrich weighed whether to enter the 2008 and 2012 presidential races. Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson was the biggest funder of American Solutions, contributing $7.65 million and rumored to have committed $20 million to a pro-Gingrich super PAC, a report denied
by an Adelson spokesperson. Whether the report is true or not, the
facts increasingly show that the billionaire casino magnate is a central
figure in Newt Gingrich’s political career.Sands
Corporation CEO Sheldon Adelson is based in Las Vegas but has business
and political interests in Macau, China and Israel. In Israel, Adelson’s
importance stems from his close friendship with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and his ownership of Israel HaYom,
a free daily newspaper which supports Netanyahu’s Likud party. Back in
the U.S., Adelson sits on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition
and is outspoken about his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During
the George W. Bush presidency, Adelson opposed efforts to jump start
peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians and even took sides
against the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) when the organization supported peace talks. “I don’t continue
to support organizations that help friends committing suicide just
because they say they want to jump,” Adelson told the Jewish Telegraph Agency.

Gingrich, who characterized Palestinians as “terrorists” during a December 10th GOP debate and told the Jewish Channel that Palestians are an “invented” people, would seem to be mirroring the hardline positions taken by his early, and cash flush, benefactor.“Sheldon
has always loved Newt. He stuck with him through all of this,” Fred
Zeidman, an Adelson friend and major player in the American Jewish
community who is backing Mitt Romney told The Daily Beast’s Aram Roston. “He stuck with him when he stumbled. Newt, I think, is very reflective of Sheldon’s mindset. Particularly with Israel.”

While
Adelson and Gingrich appear to share the same right-wing agenda on the
Middle East, the casino magnate’s business dealings in China have proven
a political liability for him at home. Adelson allegedly helped crush
a congressional measure by House Republicans opposing Beijing’s Olympic
bid. “The bill will never see the light day, Mr. Mayor. Don’t worry
about it,” he reportedly told Beijing’s mayor in 2001 after phoning then
House Majority Whip Tom Delay. The Sands Corporation went on to receive
a lucrative casino license from the Chinese government, permitting them
to begin a massive development in the Macau Special Administrative
Region (SAR).

Responding
to Adelson’s close dealings with the Chinese government, the Christian
Coalition of Alabama’s president, Dr. Randy Brinson denounced Adelson
for “not sharing our values.” “Where Sheldon Adelson has placed his
treasure makes it quite clear where his heart is: in gambling and
backing the regime in China that persecutes Christians,” he said.

Gingrich will face his own difficulties
in persuading Christian evangelicals troubled by his multiple marriages
and extramarital affairs to support his candidacy. But Sheldon
Adelson’s noticeable presence in the Gingrich camp may prove another
obstacle in winning over the all-important Christian-right.

The undersigned businesses, trade associations, and professional and labor organizations,
representing a broad cross-section of the American economy, write in support of rogue sites
legislation. We commend the Senate for their early attention to this important issue and look
forward to the introduction of a bill in the House.

We urge Congress to enact legislation which targets those who abuse the Internet
ecosystem and reap illegal profits by stealing the intellectual property (IP) of America’s
innovative and creative industries. These rogue sites—those websites dedicated to counterfeiting
and piracy—put American jobs, consumers, and innovation at risk.

Using the veil of sophisticated and well-designed websites, many of these online IP
thieves pose as legitimate businesses, luring consumers to purchase fraudulent products. Some of
these rogue sites even sell dangerously defective goods that needlessly jeopardize the health and
safety of American consumers who are deceived into purchasing consumer goods that are poorly
constructed or even contaminated with dangerous toxins. Consumers also unwittingly put
themselves at risk of identity theft and malicious computer viruses by visiting these sites.
IP-intensive industries are a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, employing more than 19
million people and accounting for 60 percent of exports. Rampant online counterfeiting and
piracy presents a clear and present threat to American jobs and innovation. A study examined
approximately 100 rogue sites and found that these sites attracted more than 53 billion visits per
year, which average out to approximately nine visits for every man, woman, and child on Earth.
Global sales of counterfeit goods via the Internet from illegitimate retailers reached $135 billion
in 2010. The theft of American IP is the theft of American jobs.

The United States cannot and should not tolerate this criminal activity. Not only are jobs
and consumers at risk, but rogue sites contribute absolutely no value to the U.S. marketplace.
The operators of rogue sites break laws, do not pay taxes, and skirt accountability. In light of
these concerns, we urge you to enact carefully balanced rogue sites legislation this year. We
commend both the House and the Senate for their attention to this important issue and look
forward to working with you in support of that goal.

From Fox 13 in Tampa comes the horrifying story of Nick Christie, a 62-year-old Ohio man who was detained by the Lee County Sheriff's Office for being publicly intoxicated. While Christie's wife asked that he be taken to the hospital, Lee County cops decided instead to strip Christie naked, tie him to a chair, cover his face, and then pepper spray him repeatedly, until he died:

The District 21 Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide because he had been restrained and sprayed with pepper sprayed by law enforcement officers. But to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime, and the Lee County State Attorney cleared the sheriff's office of any wrong doing.

It's been more than two and a half years and his wife still can't accept what happened.

"I was shocked. This was something out of a horror movie," says Joyce Christie. She said her husband was depressed and was showing signs of erratic behavior a few days before leaving for Florida.

She called authorities and pleaded with them to take her husband to a hospital and be given his medications. Instead, he was taken to jail for disorderly intoxication.

Her lawsuit alleges he was pepper sprayed 10 times over a 48-hour period, at times while in a restraint chair.

Monshay Gibbs was a deputy trainee at the jail at the time. In a video deposition, she testified that she thought the way Nick Christie was treated was excessive.

"He had a spit mask on and was naked," she said on the video while under oath. Gibbs testified that Christie pleaded with guards to take off the spit mask because he couldn't breathe.

In Albany, State Senator Carl Kruger was a canny and influential lawmaker for 16 years, respected for his command of the political currency that matters most: raising and spreading around campaign contributioBut there was something unusual about Mr. Kruger. He rarely socialized with fellow senators, seemed uncomfortable in crowds, frequently took his lunch alone in the drab Capitol cafeteria and, in an age of ubiquitous cellphones, could be spotted whispering into public pay phones.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors unveiled a 53-page criminal complaint against Mr. Kruger, 61, that unlocked many of the mysteries of his life — but deepened others. It portrayed a man who had amassed at least $1 million in bribes in return for political favors: helping hospitals seeking to merge, obtaining state money for real-estate developers, expanding the business hours of liquor stores.

And it revealed, prosecutors say, that the seemingly measured senator was using the bribes to bankroll a lavish lifestyle, financing a four-door Bentley Arnage and a $2 million waterfront home originally built for a boss of the Luchese crime family.

Mr. Kruger and seven other defendants — including Assemblyman William F. Boyland Jr., a fellow Brooklyn Democrat, and a prominent lobbyist, Richard Lipsky — were charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan with what United States Attorney Preet Bharara called “a broad-based bribery racket.”

Mr. Bharara expressed exasperation over the unrelenting corruption in Albany, saying lawmakers did not appear to learn.

“Every single time we arrest a state senator or assemblyman, it should be a jarring wake-up call,” Mr. Bharara said. “Instead, it seems that no matter how many times the alarm goes off, Albany just hits the snooze button.”

Mr. Kruger, wearing a dark suit and overcoat, entered the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in Lower Manhattan about 8:30 a.m. along with his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman. He said nothing to reporters.

A judge released the defendants, none of whom entered a plea.

“He’s saddened,” Mr. Brafman said, “because he’s been one of the most dedicated public servants for the last 25 years with an impeccable reputation. This is obviously a difficult day for all of us.”

The Senate Democratic leader, John L. Sampson, removed Senator Kruger on Thursday from his position as ranking member of the Finance Committee, effective immediately. Austin Shafran, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats, said in a statement, “These are serious charges, and it is inappropriate to comment further on an ongoing legal matter.”

In the investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation used a bug and taps on the cellphones of Senator Kruger and Mr. Lipsky, among others.

The complaint accuses Senator Kruger of accepting bribes to obtain state money for Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills, Queens and to oppose a big box store in Brooklyn; and of doling out $500,000 in state funds to one of Mr. Lipsky’s clients.

Another of the accused was David P. Rosen, whose company, MediSys Health Network, gave Assemblyman Boyland a no-show job, according to the complaint. The lawmaker helped the company get a meeting with a New York State Health Department official, the complaint said.

But it was the tangled tale of Mr. Kruger — the stocky son of a cabdriver whose accent still bears the inflection of his native Brooklyn neighborhood, Brownsville — that most captivated Albany, now jaded by run-of-the-mill pay-to-play stories.

Under the scheme, according to the complaint, Mr. Kruger sometimes accepted payments from Mr. Lipsky, the lobbyist, to do work on behalf of his clients. Other times, prosecutors said, he accepted bribes from hospitals that were funneled through a friend and partner, Solomon Kalish.

In 2009, according to the complaint, Mr. Kruger received money from Mr. Lipsky and worked against a bill expanding the reach of state recycling laws, which was opposed by beverage distributors for whom Mr. Lipsky lobbied.

When his effort failed and the bill passed, Mr. Kruger introduced a bill to delay the date the new law would go into effect.

The complaint said Mr. Kruger last year tried to help a developer and client of Mr. Lipsky’s — not named but easily recognizable as Forest City Ratner — to obtain money for three projects: $9 million for the Carlton Avenue Bridge, $2 million for a retail development in Mill Basin and $4 million for the renovation of the skating rink in Prospect Park.

Beyond the accusations of official misconduct, the complaint also described the personal drama around how the money was allegedly used by Mr. Kruger and the Turano family of Mill Basin.

It wasn't a fun week for gold. By the close on Friday, the metal was down 6.7% (based on London PM fix prices), the biggest weekly decline since September. It got downright irritating when the mainstream media seemingly rejoiced at gold's decline. Economist Nouriel Roubini poked fun at gold bugs in a Tweet. Über investor Dennis Gartman said he sold his holdings. CNBC ran an article proclaiming gold was no longer a safe-haven asset (talk about an overreaction).

While the worry may have been real, let's focus on facts. Have the reasons for gold's bull market changed in any material way such that we should consider exiting? Instead of me providing an answer, ask yourself some basic questions: Is the current support for the US dollar an honest indication of its health? Are the sovereign debt problems in Europe solved? How will the US repay its $15 trillion debt load without some level of currency dilution? Is there likely to be more money printing in the future, or less? Are real interest rates positive yet? Has gold really lost its safe haven status as a result of one bad week?

And one more: What is the mainstream media's record on forecasting precious metals prices?

Our take won't surprise you: not one fact relating to the trend for gold changed last week. We remain strongly bullish.

So why did gold, silver, and related stocks fall so hard?

The reasons outlined in this month's BIG GOLD are still in play (the MF Global fallout, a rising dollar, year-end tax-loss selling, and the need for cash and liquidity to meet margin calls or redemption requests). Last Wednesday's 3.5% fall took on a life of its own, selling begetting selling, fear adding to fear (especially the case with gold stocks). None of these reasons, however, have anything to do with the fundamental factors that ultimately drive this market. Once those issues shift, then we'll talk about exiting.

So, should we buy now? Is the bottom in?

Let's take a fresh look at gold's corrections and compare them to the recent one. I've updated the following chart to include the recent selloff.

[How do I calculate the data? I look for the periods in every annual gold chart that represent a distinct fall greater than 5%, then measure the highs and lows.]FULL STORY WITH GRAPHS

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

A self proclaimed billionaire and man of importance has just been taken down a few notches, finally having to bow out of moderating the debate. Get with it Donald you are a wanna be business man and nobody gives a damn what you think.

"The Republican Party candidates are very concerned that sometime after the final episode of The Apprentice, on May 20th, when the equal time provisions are no longer applicable to me, I will announce my candidacy for President of the United States as an Independent and that, unless I conclusively agree not to run as an Independent, they will not agree to attend or be a part of the Newsmax debate scheduled for December 27, 2011. It is very important to me that the right Republican candidate be chosen to defeat the failed and very destructive Obama Administration, but if that Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate, I am not willing to give up my right to run as an Independent candidate. Therefore, so that there is no conflict of interest within the Republican Party, I have decided not to be the moderator of the Newsmax debate. The American people are embarrassed by the gridlock currently taking place in Washington. I must leave all of my options open because, above all else, we must make America great again!

I would like to thank Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for having the courage, conviction, and confidence to immediately accept being a part of the Newsmax debate. I believe this would not only have been the most watched debate, but also the most substantive and interesting debate!"

In the clip below Chris Matthews of Hardball expresses his displeasure with the Obama presidency 3 years in.

It is clear that Matthews has lost the “thrilluphisleg” whenever someone mentions Obama, but is Obama really the problem? Matthews complaints are that Obama is running for reelection but “doesn't tell us what he is going to do?” or how he plans to “reform the healthcare system and deal with long term debt”

However these promises have not been fulfilled, the troops are still in Iraq, the deficit he inherited was roughly 400 billion making his promise to “cut it in half” so proposterous at this point that it's laughable, and healthcare is still as expensive as it ever has been.

On the surface many people will agree with Matthews, I mean nobody thinks Obamas first term has been a success. But looking deeper we can examine the real problem that Chris Matthews has, it is that Obama hasn't waved his magic wand, he hasn't come out with his miracle cure where his inspiring speeches suddenly create private sector jobs and reduce our debt.

Obama like all politicians made a multitude of promises he couldn't keep and Matthews ate it up like the establishment lap dog he is. But what Matthews either can't comprehend or can't admit to himself is that what we are witnessing in America and largely the Western world is a collapse of nearly a century of Marxist policies. It was easy to dream up government programs and throw fiat money around, it was a time of easy job security in Washington. But at some point the bills come due, and we have reached that point.

Matthews says several times in the videos “just tell us” as if he wants to know the real plan, what the reality of our situation is. But Obama doesn't “tell us” for the same reason nobody else tells us, because it isn't good news “hey you know all these things we have promised over the years, ummm yeah we actually don't have the money for it” That kind of talk doesn't win votes.

If Matthews genuinly wanted to be told, he wouldn't be such an arrogant blowhard to the one politician who does “tell us”. Ron Paul for several decades now has been warning us of this day, a lone voice in a sea of “promise everything just to get elected”. Dr. Paul gives us the hard medicine, but it is what we need and desperatly.

It is easier for Matthews to scapegoat Obama than it is to be honest that his entire political ideology is flawed even when the evidence is everywhere around us.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Did Congress vote last week to indefinitely detain Americans and hold them without charge in military prisons? Absolutely! But don’t worry; the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act didn’t kill all of your freedoms.

In fact, should President Obama sign the legislation into law, Americans in the armed forces will be allowed a few new rights worth celebrating. Just, please — however you chose to consecrate the Act, keep it to yourself.

While text in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 did indeed give the US military the power to — as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put it — turn America into a “battlefield,” for the men and women serving the United States, they will be able to, under the legislation, engage in both sodomy and bestiality, legally, while protecting America.

Don’t let lawmakers let you think the terrorists have won. American soldiers can have sex with animals now.

Finally.

The 97-to-3 vote in the Senate last week is causing a few new controversial legislations, but somehow under the radar of many was text that repealed article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And what does that say? Let’s take a gander:

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.

(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

Now repealed, the military cannot find those that commit those acts guilty of any crime. Now all sorts of sex (anal sex, gay sex, oral sex, rooster sex, et cetera) are fine and dandy.

Apparently Uncle Sam is a lot more understanding of your sexual preferences than you thought.

While the arguably more dangerous wording in the Act gives Congress the power to engage military rule over every American citizen without reason, the reinstating of sex acts has understandable already garnered its fair share of opponents as well. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told CNSNews.com that the move is "all about using the military to advance this administration's radical social agenda.”

At the same time, however, Perkins acknowledged that removing the bestiality provision by repealing the act to make sodomy a-okay in the military could have just been “collateral damage.”

Frankly, the whole thing seems like a hairy situation.

“Well, whether it was inadvertent or not, they have also taken out the provision against bestiality,” Perkins adds. “So now, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), there’s nothing there to prosecute bestiality.”

WorldNetDaily reporter Lester Kinsolving asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Monday this week if Obama was in support of the legislation. The journalist quizzed Carney on whether or not Obama was particularly a proponent of sodomy and bestiality, which the secretary shrugged off and asked reporters for their next question.

In typical PETA fashion, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have since gone after the White House for not taking the matter seriously.

“Our office has been flooded with calls from Americans who are upset that this ban has been repealed — and for good reason,” they say in an official statement. “As we outlined in the attached letter sent yesterday to the secretary of defense, animal abuse does not affect animals only — it is also a matter of public safety, as people who abuse animals very often go on to abuse human beings.”

When the Act went before the Republican-dominated House of Representatives earlier this year, the amendment asking for the appeal of the sex law was absent. Only under a revision from the Democrat-controlled Senate did the legalese get snuck in.

In the world of finance, there is always talk of bubbles – mortgage bubbles, tech stock bubbles, junk bond bubbles. But bubbles don’t develop only in financial markets. In recent years, there's been another one quietly inflating, not capturing the attention of most observers.

It's an education bubble – just not the one of student debt that has graced the pages of the New York Times and so many other publications in recent months.

The problem is not that we are overeducating ourselves as many would have you believe. Rather, it’s that we are spending a fortune to undereducate ourselves.

The United States has always been a very educated country. But it is becoming less and less so, especially in the areas that matter to our individual and collective economic futures. Our undereducation begins with a stubbornly high dropout rate among secondary education students. About a quarter of those who begin high school don't finish.

In an educational system where graduation from high school at a minimum level often means no grasp of mathematics beyond basic arithmetic, no training in basic personal finance, and no marketable professional skills, this is an obvious problem We can and should do more to prepare high school graduates for the world they now live in.

The big problems aren't rooted in high school education, however, but with the decisions we as a nation are making in the education we get beyond the compulsory level.

Of those students who do make it through high school, 30% will not go on to any further education. That means 70% enroll immediately in a two- or four-year degree program, a major increase from the about 49% three decades ago. Despite rising college entry rates, we are not graduating any additional college students. That's largely because among those who immediately enroll in college post high school, some 40% are not expected to get their degrees within six years.

The result: our overall college-educated cohort has flatlined over the past 30 years. The number of American citizens aged 25-34 who have attained a college education – including either a two- or four-year degree program – is exactly the same as the percentage among 55-64-year-olds, at 41%. (The US is also the only developed nation where a higher percentage of 55- to 64-year-olds than 25- to 34-year-olds has graduated from high school.)

Thirty years ago that 41% figure led the world in college grads; now we're 16th and trending lower.

Many have suggested that it's because we have a less than stellar college education system. But nothing could be further from the truth. While it has some problems for sure, the US remains a leader in post-secondary educational quality. One need look no further than the increasing number of foreign students pursuing advanced degrees in the US. For the 2009-10 school year, about 690,000 non-US citizens were enrolled at colleges in the US – the highest level in the world and up 26% from a decade ago.

Not only are foreigners attending our schools in record numbers, they are far more apt to pursue high-level degrees than US students. Foreign students constitute 2.5% of bachelor's degree students, 10% of graduate students, and 33% of doctoral candidates.

Despite a top-notch educational system in the US, we're failing to take full advantage of the opportunities it provides. But the bad news doesn't end there.

In the 21st century, intellectual capital is what truly differentiates in the job market and what helps a country grow its economy. Investments in biosciences, computers and electronics, engineering, and other growing high-tech industries have been the major differentiator in recent decades. In order to be competitive in those fields, however, a nation must invest in so-called "STEM" studies (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).

During the latter half of the 20th century, as more and more US high-schoolers opted to at least start college and were able to afford to go, their choice of academic pursuits have tended away from STEM subjects and toward the less-rigorous liberal arts.

When fewer students attended college and even fewer jobs required technical skills, private employers, and especially government, could soak up the overflow, putting people to work provided they had a degree, any degree... for a while. English literature, sociology, psychology, communications, fine arts, gender studies, and the like were majors that led, inadvertently, to nontechnical jobs – the blue-collar work of an information economy, marketing, and business, and of course to teaching the increasing numbers of new college students.

However, more careers than ever now require technical skills. Economic growth has slowed and unemployment rates have spiked, making employers much pickier about qualifications to hire. Plus, boomers have chosen or been forced to work longer in those professorships and other jobs.

There is now a glut of liberal arts majors. A classic bubble, born of unrealistic expectations that the investment of a hundred grand (or more) must result in a cascade of job offers. Or at least one.

It's not happening. A study from Georgetown University listed the five college majors with the highest unemployment rates (crossed against popularity): clinical psychology, 19.5%; miscellaneous fine arts, 16.2%; United States history, 15.1%; library science, 15.0%; and military technologies and educational psychology are tied at 10.9%.

In 2009, 1,601,368 bachelor's degrees were conferred in the US, a 30% increase from 2000, which should be a good thing. But of these, a large plurality, 590,678, or 36.9%, was awarded in one or another of the liberal arts. That's higher than 2000's 36.1%.

Moreover, the next most popular major was business, with 347,985 degrees, or 21.7% of the total (up from 20.7% in 2000). And it was followed by health professions at 120,488 (7.5% vs. 6.5% in 2000); and education at 101,708 (6.4% vs. 8.8% in 2000). The business bulge would be okay if students were trained in how to start their own businesses. But it's more likely that they dream of a lavish Wall Street job, one few will ever attain. In fact, that PayScale survey listed business as only the 59th best-paying college degree.

At the other end, these are the bachelor's degrees earned in STEM subjects, as a percentage of 2009's total, compared with 2000: engineering, 6.4% (down from 8.8%); biological and biomedical sciences , 5.0% (down from 5.1%); computer and information sciences, 2.4% (down from 3.1%); physical sciences and science technologies, 1.4% (down from 1.5%); and at bottom, math and statistics, 1.0% (up from 0.9%).

Americans don't get it. Foreigners studying here do. True, the highest concentration of foreigners is the 21% in business and management. After that, though, comes engineering at 18%, nearly triple the level of US students; physical and life sciences (9%), and math and computer science (9%).

More than one in three foreign students at US colleges are entering these fields. Compare that to to fewer than one in six US collegians. Fine and applied arts, English, and humanities collectively account for only 12% of the foreigners' total.

There are any number of reasons for the emergence of the US's liberal-arts bubble. One is easy money. Students have been encouraged to attend college by the availability of loans, both governmental and private sector, and the disproportionate wealth of their baby boomer parents' generation.

In addition, many companies began requiring a degree – any degree – for entry-level jobs that could adequately be filled by a bright high-schooler.

Institutions of higher learning bear some measure of blame as well. Liberal arts programs are much more profitable than hard sciences – professor salaries are lower as their non-academic options are lower, less equipment is required, and of course, recruiting is easier.

Other factors might include the stigmatization of "nerds" who take on more challenging studies; the lack of quality math and science education in secondary schools (where are they going to get great teachers when there's so much money to be made with the relevant degrees elsewhere?); and the widespread misperception that any college degree will punch one's ticket to an easier life.

As more philosophy B.A.s wait tables, it'd be nice if we could wave a magic wand that populated high school science and math classes with teachers who inspire students and students who want to be inspired. But, alas, this a generational bubble.

Lacking that, high school counselors should begin warning students of the perils of spending four years pursuing an interest for which there is no market and advising their charges where the real opportunities lie.

Would-be liberal arts majors must face the reality that one of their few hopes for a future job is to teach the same subject to the next generation, and that competition for the few such specialized positions is going to be intense.

Furthermore, there remains a wide gap between males and females with regard to math and science. Since three females are now attending college for every two males, this is a vast untapped resource. If females currently are discouraged from becoming interested in STEM subjects from an early age, as much research indicates, that's reversible. If they can actively be guided toward those fields, that's doable, too.

The US has led the planet in scientific research and technological innovation for a long time. But that is changing. Other nations, especially in the developing world, are minting new scientists and engineers faster than we are. Without major changes to our cultural attitude towards math and science, and some pretty serious changes to the educational system to support it, we risk becoming second-class citizens in a techno-society that we largely invented.